III.
Critique
A. First important point to critique
The author would like to emphasize how do learners process in the input and how it is negotiated
by learners or modified by speakers.
If input was comprehensible, learners would comprehend it correctly and get
good linguistic data from that input (Krashen, 1982)
(Van Pattern,1984a) The reader is invited to examine the following interchange
(E=experimenter, L=learner; all errors are original to the learner:
E: ¿Cómo están ellos? “How are they?”
L: Ellos son contentos, “They’re happy.”
E: Y ellos, ¿cómo están?, “And them. How are they?”
L: Son contento también. “They’re happy, too.”
B. Second important point
The importance of the role of input in terms of input modification and negotiation and
psycholinguistically in terms of processing.
Research on these issues led to a set of principles that guide and constrain how
learners—when left to their own devices—process input data. These principles
and their motivation have been described in detail in a number of other places
(e.g., VanPatten, 1996, 2004,2007, 2008)
One way to conceptualize this is to consider that input processing research
focuses on one and only one set of processes used by learners during the course
of acquisition. There are other processes and factors that must be involved in
order to have a full understanding of SLA(e.g., Universal Grammar, frequency)
C. Third Important Point
The importance of learner-centered strategies/principles for input processing.
Primacy of Content Words: Learners process content words in the input before
anything else.
Primacy of Content Words suggests is that initially, learners connect
lexical form to its meaning and function, but not grammatical form to its meaning or
function.
Lexical Preference Principle: If grammatical forms express a meaning that can also be
encoded lexically (e.g., that grammatical marker is redundant), then learners will not
initially process those grammatical forms until they have lexical forms to which they can
match them.
The First Noun Principle: Learners tend to process the first noun or pronoun they
encounter in the sentence as the subject.
To be sure, some have suggested that this is not a universal processing principle but is
derived from L1 transfer (e.g., Carroll, 2004; Isabelli, 2008), mainly because the vast
majority of L2 learners tested have English as their L1. For example, Isabelli’s 2008
study shows that Italian L1 speakers do not have the same problems interpreting Lo vio
María as learners with English L1.
The Lexical Semantics Principle: Learners may rely on lexical semantics, where
possible, instead of the First Noun Principle to interpret sentences.
The Event Probabilities Principle: Learners may rely on event probabilities, where
possible, instead of the First Noun Principle to interpret sentences.
IV. Conclusion
There are various processes in the input and how it can be modified by the learners or
speakers. When the input is made comprehensible, learners would comprehend it
effectively
However, there are some instances that learners used to filter the words given to them
that may lead to misinterpret passive structures.
Researches on input processing should not stick only with input negotiation and
modification but also psycholinguistically in terms of processing.
T here are lot of principles that explains how learners begin with coping input processing.
Yet, at the same time, their theory does not detail particular strategies that may or may
not impede the processing of input data, as their main concern is overarching theoretical
issues concerning how grammars change over time.
